Catch Jim’s 4-minute podcast on Youtube:https://youtu.be/xCoMkieaa-Y

or read the transcript below:

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Life, actually…

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THE EYES OF A BILLION BEHOLDERS

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“There’s nothing on the back of this picture,” one bookshop browser comments. She is rummaging through stacks of old family snapshots adrift in a basket. She glances up dismissively and flips the image aside.

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“Who would want to keep pictures of people they don’t know?” she inquires of the world at large.

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Who indeed, I wonder. Who would want to enshrine images of random humans living random lifetimes? I hope to get a word in edgewise when she approaches check-out time.

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“Looky here,” her playmate for the day speaks up. She’s gazing at a proof sheet of wedding pictures. Black-and-white women dressed in one-day party garb. Uncomfortable men in rented tuxes. Punch bowls and clear glass cups and decorated cakes surround them.

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“Whose wedding is this? Why are they in the store?”

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I can’t help but answer, “We don’t know whose wedding this is. They are here because their family threw them away.” I let that soak in.

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“But why would somebody trash their own family?” she wonders.

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“Well, we adopt these thrown-away photographs, these unknown and un-identified folks because they ARE family.” I know this sounds corny but it’s true. “They are part of the World’s family.”

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The browser is still picking out old baby pictures, snaps of somebody’s grandmother, shaken prints of kids and dogs and pedal cars. None marked for posterity. All tossed.

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She muses, “I just threw away a lot of old family albums because I don’t know anybody in them.” She pauses half a beat and wonders, “Should I keep these things? Where would I put them…” her voice fades and she stands there, her arms full of imaginary lifetimes.

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Whenever I feel I’m preaching too much I simply say something like, “If you are ever on your way to a dumpster to get rid of scrapbooks, snapshots, postcards, letters, diaries, documents and so on, just drop them by the shop. We’ll make sure they get into proper hands.”

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She listens and decides to think about it later.

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People have all kinds of opinions about the things they discard.

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Your trash may be my treasure. And vice versa no doubt.

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Archivists preserve things you and I wouldn’t dream of retaining.

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You and I save stuff archivists might shun.

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It gets worse, it gets better, depending on what you do next.

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Combing through the lives of discarded people gives me a chance to appreciate them one more time—or for the very first time. A chance to tell them, perhaps posthumously, that they did matter. Mattered enough to become fond memory icons in obscure old bookshops and ephemera emporiums.

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A chance to return to life for at least a few moments. Historic markers of how important they once were to those who practiced the art of saving and cherishing small lovely memories

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© 2025 A.D. by Jim Reed

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Waiting and watching, watching and waiting. That’s what I spend much of my time doing these days. Waiting rooms, drive-through lines, queues of all kinds, seem to dominate the time allotted for living my life.

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If I weren’t a writer I’d let all this hurry-up-and-wait business get to me. But, once I realize that I must wait and wait and wait to obtain what I need, I just take a deep breath and scan my whereabouts to see what’s what, to see what I’m missing.

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Shifting from foot to foot at a barbecue counter, I patiently await tasty delights. I enjoy the fragrances, the avid carnivore diners, the slow-moving servers, the hickory smoke, the code-word shouts from the kitchen.

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One customer enters the eatery to pick up his order. The barkeep turns from the to-go window apologetically announcing that “We ran out of baked beans. Would you like other sides?”

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The customer emotes, explaining that he placed the order hours ago when they surely had plenty of baked beans. The server furrows his brow and tries to appease. No baked beans to be had.

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The fuming customer exchanges hand-wringing words by phone, apparently placating a demanding companion who insists that baked beans must be had, or else…

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“How long will it take to cook up some beans?” Now the customer transitions into a diplomat negotiator.

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“It would take at least 45 minutes.” The barkeep is being as patient and helpful as possible.

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Customer fumes a moment. “Naw, we have to make the game on time. Can’t wait…” he ponders. “What other sides you got?”

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“Banana pudding, potato salad, cole slaw, etc.”

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Fussy phone voice reluctantly decides on potato salad, making sure the world must know that this is a life-changing decision she is being forced to make against her will.

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Customer goes outside to await the new order. Barkeep brings my order plus condiments. We fist-bump and I’m on my way out.

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At the curb the pressured customer is waiting. I try to make small talk. “Those must be special baked beans. What are they like?” He is only interested in mouthing off about the outrageous service. “Well, restaurants are complicated places…I guess they have good moments and bad moments,” I chuckle.

The customer doesn’t miss a beat. “Yeah, but I put in the order hours ago. They just have lousy service.”

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I figure he’s going to repeat this rant, with sidebars, for the rest of the evening. I can imagine a swollen chorus once the phone voice adds her two bits.

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This story could be the most important family tale for weeks to come, in a land where other people’s transgressions are always bigger than our own

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© 2025 A.D. by Jim Reed

 CLICK HERE TO CATCH JIM’S RED CLAY DIARY

https://youtu.be/0-ztmUjgUYE

OR READ THE TRANSCRIPT BELOW:

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Life, actually…

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ABANDON HOPELESSNESS, ALL YE WHO ENTER HERE

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Down here in the Deep South, I am a witness to this day and age.

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In fact, you are also a witness to our times.

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Whether reluctant or not, you and I bear witness to what is going on, witness to what is not going on, witness to what should never go on, witness to what could go on if things were in place and functioning wholesomely.

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The following is unsolicited thoughty advice. Advice that may lie fallow, advice that may make sense, advice useless to you, advice maybe just maybe useful to you.

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Hear Jim Reed’s Red Clay Diary podcast:  https://youtu.be/1dpAnfSKodw

or read the transcript below:

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Life, actually…

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BORN WORTHWHILE WAY DOWN SOUTH

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A lean and lank shirtless wanderer walks purposely down Third Avenue North on an almost-hundred-degree afternoon. The sun presses down, the concrete radiates upward, the breeze secludes itself.

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Inside the bookshop a lean and lank fully-clothed browser scans shelves purposely beneath the pleasurable AC air, within earshot of a mellow jazz piano.

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Outside, the unbloused nomad stops at a corner trash receptacle and leans in to scrounge for edibles. Barring food, he is also alert for things pawnable. There is half a pack of fries. He fetches it quickly and gracefully, munching as the search continues.

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Within the bookshop a few feet away, the book enthusiast opens a volume and instantly reads,

“Alone in the night

On a dark hill

With pines around me

Spicy and still…”

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The reader is surprised and mystified. He reads further. He will not allow this moment to fade.

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On the other side of the front wall, the shirtless man’s skin glistens as he twirls in the light and continues his strolling quest for nourishment. The wadded paper fry-pack is poetry in his hands.

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Inside, the half-smiling bookperson feels oddly nourished by the words of Sara Teasdale. Food is out of reach, out of mind.

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The lone bookshop proprietor peers over his counter, watching customer and poacher simultaneously, one within breathing distance, the other through the large plate glass window.

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For an instant, the shopkeeper feels like a peeping tom. Then, his writerly instincts remind him of his duty to permanently record these two lives, these two gestures in time.

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So that you and I can witness.

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So that we can attest to the significance of these otherwise invisible angels

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© 2025 A.D. by Jim Reed

Hear Jim’s Red Clay Diary: https://youtu.be/BGbT1SDIRbI

or read his transcript, below:

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Life, actually…

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CRISPY FRIES, LEMON MERINGUE AND THICK GOOEY ICING

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Here’s something I like about Down South.

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I was raised on country food, soul food, junk food, down-home food.

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Guilty admissions about my lifelong Down South diet: If it is breaded, crunchy, overcooked, crusted, sugary, salty, spicy and just plain bad for me, I tend to love it.

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I know, I know…this kind of eating is not endorsed by healthy, evangelical, disapproving whole-food progressives. They want me to live longer and more miserably by ingesting only those tasteless things that are good for me.

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That phrase, Good for Me, is the red line that rankles and holds me back from doing the Right Thing.

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I am not yet a complete idiot, but I am approaching complete idiocy. The sane part of me knows that the good-fooders are correct—I should be eating what they eat. And, of course, I do eat properly most of the time. Maybe I’ll live an extra two hours because of this.

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But Temptation is so…Tempting.

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I just have to revert to childhood now and then and eat everything that is holy and unhealthy.

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Sacred food is essential at times:  I tend to eat the icing and forego the cake. I chomp on the meringue and try the lemon maybe later. I munch the crunchy fries quickly, before they turn mushy. I crave the grooves in Ruffles. I always eat one too many seasalted cashews. I vow to stop at one Buddy Bar, then fail.  A whiff of hot dog produces catsup dreams. Triple-buttered-and-salted-and-peppered grits are the only grits worthy of consideration.

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Are you following me?

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All this stuff will eventually kill me.

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But I’ll go out with a pleasured smile on my face.

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What would that smile look like were I to die while eating kale?

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Scary thought, isn’t it

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© 2025 A.D. by Jim Reed

Catch Jim’s story on youtube: https://youtu.be/UMiG1jy_ysc

or read the transcript below:

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Life, actually…

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MARKING TIME WITH BOONDOGGLERS

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Wasting time is the most productive thing I do in my little corner of the world.

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When I consider a book for possible acquisition, I look as if I am not doing anything at all. I hold it, stare, turn it over, riffle, check copyright page, sniff for contaminations, and so on and so forth. To the casual observer I am merely frozen in place, book in hand, doing a lot of nothing. You know—I’m that old guy having an old guy moment.

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I seem to be a boondoggler.

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At my writing desk in my writing room, I stare motionless at surroundings—walls, pictures, ephemera, fixtures, displays, bookcases. If you catch me in the non-act, I seem to be stop-motioned and absent-minded.

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I am thinking, I am thinking, I tell you! Busy busy.

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When a droner drones on, I am gazing deeply as though attention is being paid. In fact, I am sometimes somewhere else, though my alert body tells a fib. If the droner is infatuated with the droning, my diverted self will not be noticed.

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Honest, we authors and artists are doing our best work when static and mulling.

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By the way, the actual production of a ponderment seldom takes more than a few minutes. A fully-formed story may just stream through my fingers onto keyboard keys and produce a six-hour work of art in two minutes of typing. This may feel like cheating to you, but it is no more mysterious than cooking an omelet or laying a brick.

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Most of the time, I don’t get caught not paying attention until the very end. When the droning ends and my only reaction is to say, “There is a dab of chocolate on the tip of your nose. Thought you’d like to know,” the droner suddenly realizes nobody was listening.

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I don’t mean to offend, but this is the way it is, here in Boondoggle Land

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 © 2025 A.D. by Jim Reed

Listen to Jim’s 4-minute audio podcast: https://youtu.be/iu6MNvxvxSg

or read on…

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Life, actually…

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THE BIRMINGHAM TO TUSCALOOSA BREEZEWAY DOGTROT

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Children of the Down South Soil, this is a special report from one Village Elder.

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See whether you can immerse yourself in these flashes of long-ago joys. See whether you will be inspired to file away and cherish your own lifetime extension of happy treasures.

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Everything I say is true and actual.

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Driving west from Birmingham, I pass by a ramshackle breezeway home where one wizened whittler quietly shapes his lap sculpture on porch steps, pausing only a moment to look at me and wave a smile before I disappear into the red bug ladybug mist. 

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Further on, the West Blocton exit illuminates vivid times where deep inside I still play on Rose Lane, birthplace of my father. The family house is gone now, but part of me is still running around the backyard, next in line to use the outhouse.

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Tuscaloosa approaches, and there I am suddenly standing barefoot on clay, recalling times when kinfolk still lived in a breezeway dogtrot house on the North River. I can still taste crystal water dipped from the front yard well, feel its coolness, experience the nurturing of people genetically connected to me.

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Good times and fond memories during my time here on Planet Three bounce all over the place.

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On the way to T Town, there is the Brookwood exit, where the hope and play of childhood remembers me as a tad adventuring into the woods of Peterson. Nearby homes of grandparents and cousins are my tether, guaranteeing I won’t be lost for long during tiny explorations.

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The Birmingham to Tuscaloosa Breezeway Dogtrot memory machine is merrily out of control.

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Somewhere hereabouts is Hurricane Creek, where water moccasins and giggly girlfriends play side by side during weekend picnics. Not too far away is Lock 13, a marvel of technology and noise and clanking waterlogged metals.

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All these places intermingle in my childhood playground, and it’s good to call on them when I need to escape the computerized and politicized world for a bit.

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Sometimes I recall them, sometimes they recall me right back.

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If you can imagine my extensive and erratic Alabama lifespan as a plot of land, you could measure it from Cuba on the Mississippi border to western Jefferson County, from north Birmingham and Northport to Montevallo just south of here.

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My forays outside this region are instructive, but there is never any place anything like sweet home Down South Alabama.

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And home is where I still dip into the past to dredge up washboard roads, fossils jutting from chalky riverbanks, sputtering swimmers and treaders at play, rolled-down windows, stick shift roadsters, long rope swings, barbed wire fences, pines and scraggly bushes, teetering tree houses, corrugated tin roofs, makeshift bows and arrows, wandering hobos, haunting train whistles, arrowheads here and there, infinitely observable ant beds, penny candy, sparklers and fireflies in the dusk, mysterious attics and damp basements, whispery gossip and tall tales, pet frogs, yodeling playmates, bubblegum cards, and always and forever the homebase, the center of the known universe, my family, my bunk bed, my endless dreams at the end of hard play days.

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You children of the Down South soil, cherish what time you have, pay attention to the tales of elders, protect the young’uns, and hold fast to your fond memories. They might come in handy here and there, now and then

© 2025 A.D. by Jim Reed

Hear Jim’s two-minute podcast: https://youtu.be/qlOa5IQ_aGM

or read the transcript below…

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Life, actually…

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THE TWIRLING DRESS

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She designed it from sweet memory.

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Then she made it just for herself.

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A dress well-conceived and well executed.

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A dress that existed for celebrations to come.

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It was pretty when she made it so long ago.

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It was bright and fresh and new.

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It smelled so good.

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It felt like an elegant second skin.

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It reminded her of a good life on a good day on a one-day-only good planet.

It made her want to dance.

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It made her want to twirl.

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It made her want to remain within that moment.

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It made her wish that moment would be endless and forever accessible.

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She was fine and bright and filled with the goodness that forms from sacrifice and good will.

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She had done her share of nurturing and comforting those around her.

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The newly formed dress gave her permission to pamper herself for a change.

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A lovely creation a lovely creature a lovely chance to toss away past regrets and future fears.

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A lovely chance to soar free and easy for a few moments, to create special memories that could never be taken from her.

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The twirling is done now, the times have shifted.

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But the fine painting she created now hangs high in her room. Her painting of that wonderful dress suspends the moment and makes it so easy for her to occasionally float into the canvas and once more pilot the dress, don the dress, feel the dress, levitate those past moments so dear to her

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 © 2025 A.D. by Jim Reed